


The Woman in Black

by agnesgrey



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Recovery, veiled threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-06 08:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agnesgrey/pseuds/agnesgrey
Summary: He told himself later he was too distracted by all the fussing and the confusion and pain to see her come in, but the truth he couldn't admit even to himself was he didn't think shehadcome in. She just emerged from the shadows, slowly, like the moon coming out from behind the clouds. At first she was nothing more than a darker shape in a dark shadowed corner, then parts of her showing clear: the curve of a pale cheek, the glimpse of a white-skinned wrist between black gloves and a long trailing black coat sleeve, the bright hair nearly hidden by a black hat with a small veil pulled just over her face.





	The Woman in Black

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).

> Mainly for the prompt "Hurt/comfort! Jack’s been shot! Peggy and Daniel save him from the edge of death! He’s a terrible patient and they have to basically tie him up to keep him from going back to work and injuring himself further" -- I LOVE Jack getting shot in that hotel room, so much (sorry Jack) and hopefully Daniel sitting on his chest to keep him still qualifies as basically tying him up. You know Jack would be the worst patient ever. Then my glance fell on "More shenanigans with Dottie Underwood and the Red Room and girls trained to be killers," and, well, Dottie does what she wants. I do hope you like it!

He heard them coming down the corridor for him -- Peggy pounding like a bruiser for such a shrimp of a woman, even in her heels, and Daniel's surprisingly swift step-plant-and-swing with his crutch -- and was almost glad. He knew it was selfish, but he wanted the chance to say goodbye. He didn't feel too bad, just lightheaded and dizzy, and he was shivering, but there was something warm around him, like in a bath, so it wasn't that bad. Not like in the war. He'd been ambushed right back, in the end -- it might be cosmic revenge, or justice even, if he believed in such a thing. Peggy dived to her knees beside him, heedless of the blood that would get on her skirt and stockings, her hands deftly checking his wrist, his neck, his forehead, all motion as she bundled off her coat, a thick wool thing, and passed it to Daniel on his other side. "Press that on the wound as hard as you can. Harder." He heard her snatching up the bedside telephone, demanding the hotel doctor, summoning ambulances, calling down the cavalry. For him. He closed his eyes.

"Hey, Jack, no. Stay with me, okay?" Jesus, Sousa was going to kill him with the cliches. Peggy snapped, "Where is that _bloody_ doctor?" and ran back down the hall, her footsteps like fists pounding on a locked door. He squinted at Daniel, whose face was showing the strain of what felt like him pushing Jack through the carpet into the wood floor. Funny he couldn't really feel it, though. "No, no. It's all right. Lissen. _Listen,_ Sousa."

"Don't talk -- "

"Ah jeez, shut up. You gotta....you gotta watch out for her. Okay? Nobody does. She...."

Sousa shifted his grip and pushed harder; Peggy's coat felt heavier, wet. "She doesn't want a babysitter."

"Fuck, I _know_ that -- "

"Did you know she got herself _impaled_ on some rebar? A while back? And didn't want to tell anyone?" Daniel angrily tried to wipe his eyes on his own shoulder, but he would have had to let go of Jack to really reach. Jack could see his muscles working through the thin material of his shirt. _Not dead yet, if I can still appreciate the view._ Daniel had overdeveloped upper body mass, too, so he could push harder than most; Peggy would have thought of that. The way she thought of everything. Except thinking that she could show him even one moment of weakness, let alone her getting a foot of steel through her stomach. Well, now she'd seen him with his guts spilling out, maybe that somehow made them even.

He _hadn't_ known that, but he didn't let Daniel's cheap shot stop him. "If she stays with you in L.A. -- You watch her back. Promise. You promise me." He raised his arm to grip Daniel's wrist and emphasize how important it was, but he was weaker than a kitten. Daniel held his eyes, warm and steady, like a beacon, instead of reaching for his hand. The pressure was suddenly worse -- no, that wasn't Daniel. He needed to tell Daniel about the shooter and the file, especially the file, but he couldn't fill his lungs. He had to tell both Peg and Daniel to watch out.

"I promise, Jack. Now _you_ promise you just keep looking at me, all right? Don't close your eyes. Look at me -- _look at me,_ Jack. Come on. Just keep looking at me. That's right. That's all right."

"....not so hard....nice view," Jack got out, and Daniel laughed. Jack tried to laugh too, but his chest weighed about a thousand pounds and had dropped through the hotel room floor onto the lodger below. _Sorry, Mr Appliance Sales & Repairs of Saratoga Springs, or whoever you are. I'll be gone soon_. He couldn't breathe, it was like Daniel was squeezing all the air out of his chest, but that was all right, there were definitely worse ways to go.

He wished later he could have seen Peggy bursting back into the room with all the world on her heels, having not only found but commandeered a second doctor who _just happened_ to be checking in as she was pulling the hotel sawbones along in the lobby. But Sousa would be content to tell him the story over and over again, as if he were a favourite child, with Peggy pretending to be annoyed but really secretly embarrassed with a little flush coming up that even she couldn't hide. "Daniel, _really,_ you're exaggerating." "Florence Nightingale woulda hid under the bed," Daniel told him solemnly, in that future Peggy had dragged him into, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and hauling him over death's threshold like a load of wet laundry.

The first time he woke up in the hospital after the shooting, he was so stoned on morphine it all felt like a dream, except he could still feel the pain, but the pain didn't hurt. That made no sense, and he chuckled a little bit. He heard Sousa's sharp inhale to his left, and cut his eyes over -- turning his head didn't work -- to see him propped up in one lousy straight-backed chair, Peg slumped on another, her head on Sousa's shoulder and one arm draped across his lap. _Aww, that's cute._ He tried to say so but suddenly _god damn_ his throat was dry, it was terrible, it would've been burning but the morphine made it all feel like it was happening to some other poor sap a couple of towns away. Without looking, he felt a thick mummy-wrapping of bandages wound tightly around from below his stomach to just about his armpits, scratchy pajama bottoms (thank God) but the rest of him half-naked under the stiff sheet, a needle in his arm plucking for attention. "Peg, _Peg -- "_ Daniel was gently shaking her, and he wanted to tell him to stop, she needed the sleep, but she jumped awake and saw Jack was awake too -- well, that he had his eyes open anyway -- and then she was working the call bell like it was a fire alarm, and he heard her voice calling "Doctor -- _Doctor?"_ down the hall, ringing off the bare walls and tiled floors. Calling for the resurrection, at the four corners of the world.

He looked back at Daniel, who was leaking again. "Hey," he whispered, the words catching in his throat like glass shards. "Your mascara's running."

"Shut the fuck up, you jackass," Daniel said, smiling, his hand gripping Jack's, warm and living and strong. Jack tried to squeeze his fingers and couldn't. God, his throat hurt. " -- Some water?" That was a mistake, he started coughing, just barely, but the movement scraped against the bandages like a knife edge. Daniel's eyes got wide and he said suddenly, "The nurse, nurse said ice chips -- " and he was yanking on the poor call bell too, and then he was limping out of the room double-time, his crutch forgotten. _You idiot,_ Jack tried to call after him, but suddenly it was all he could do to just lie on the bed and breathe as lightly and carefully as possible.

He told himself later he was too distracted by all the fussing and the confusion and pain to see her come in, but the truth he couldn't admit even to himself was he didn't think she _had_ come in. She just emerged from the shadows, slowly, like the moon coming out from behind the clouds. At first she was nothing more than a darker shape in a dark shadowed corner, then parts of her showing clear: the curve of a pale cheek, the glimpse of a white-skinned wrist between black gloves and a long trailing black coat sleeve, the bright hair nearly hidden by a black hat with a small veil pulled just over her face.

But nothing could hide the eyes. They were the cold, flat eyes of a killer, and they stayed fixed on him as she tilted her head a little to the left, sizing him up. She could have smothered him with a pillow -- hell, with one of her gloved hands. He knew instinctively that the worst thing would be to show fear, and also that he couldn't manage it, not flat on his back with tubes dripping God knows what into him and his throat on fire. He tried anyway. "Hey, Dottie," he said.

He knew Carter and Sousa couldn't have been gone long at all, a mere matter of minutes -- but it was like Dottie had all the time in the world. "Hi, Jack," she said back to him. "How's your stick?" Her voice was beautiful, a soothing low alto, soft and warm, with poison running through it.

"It's happy to see you," Jack said, and immediately paid for it -- he started wheezing hard, and coughing again. She began walking towards his bed, each step deliberate and loud, the click of her heels as much of a threat as bullets being slowly loaded into a revolver. He felt fear pour through him, cold and liquid and more overwhelming than in the hotel room. He gritted his teeth, then bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. She saw the twitch and smiled at him, a lovely crazy smile like a possessed doll. She stopped right by the side of his bed and put her hand on his forehead, like a nurse or a mother. He didn't dare move. She tilted her head again, to the right this time, deciding whether or not to strike.

"Peggy likes you," she said, still in that lullaby tone, and Jack was so astonished all he could do was gape at her. She grinned down at him. "She'd care a whole lot if she came rushing back in here and you had died on her watch. I daresay she'd be heartbroken."

Jack didn't breathe.

"You should be nice to her," Dottie said, already moving away. "You should try to make her happy." He had a flash of a cat suddenly abandoning its prey, mercurial and bored. She paused in the doorway and even with adrenaline coursing through his useless body, he had to admire the disguise -- widow's weeds were like another uniform, and people would remember only the black dress and concealing veil; and they'd look away fast if she looked at them, feeling pity but also the ancient urge to avoid someone else's suffering, as if it were catching like a disease. She looked over her shoulder, framed like a girl in a moving picture.

"Take care of yourself, Jack," she said, with just a little chiding in her tone. "For her sake."

"Yeah, you too," he said in incredulous wonder. She smiled at him, and the blackness took him again, overwhelmingly for the moment, but, at least this time, not for good.


End file.
